1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to information systems, and more particularly to medical information systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medical images are commonly stored, distributed, and viewed in digital form using computer technology. Often however, electronic medical records regarding a specific individual may exist in many locations. Picture Archival and Communication Systems (PACS) and other imaging archives have been used to store medical images. In a typical PACS or other digital imaging archive and workflow application, image data obtained by imaging equipment such as CT (Computed Tomography) scanners, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanners, Whole Slide Imaging scanners, or other imaging sources are stored in the form of computer data files.
A large hospital system may be spread across a wide geographical area and may comprise numerous hospitals and imaging centers. These hospitals and imaging centers may have separate installations of PACS for Radiology and/or Cardiology and other distinct imaging archives for Anatomic Pathology, Oncology and other imaging specialties referred as “-ologies” that constitute distinct silos of information. The siloed and distributed nature of such disparate imaging systems may impede the efficiency of information retrieval for radiologists, cardiologists, pathologists or other diagnostic imaging specialists and referring clinicians alike.
Patients often get referred from one hospital to another for various reasons, but their imaging studies and reports may not be easily available, which may result in unnecessary repeat imaging studies, inferior imaging reports, and tedious searching of possible prior test results across multiple different PACS.
It would be desirable to provide a standards-based platform that links the PACS enterprise and all the other diagnostic imaging archives, and provides a unified view of all of a patient's prior tests and reports from across all hospitals and specialties in the system.